Should guns be illegal?

Question

I think so. I believe in safety and health first. How many LESS people would be killed per year in the USA if guns were illegal and difficult to obtain. The government could subdue and kill violent criminals safely. My Mom's boyfriend legally had a gun and he used it to commit suicide. How many more gun related deaths will there have to be before our government realizes that guns are designed and used to kill. Lethal weapons should not be available to citizens.

If guns are legal then why are automatic weapons illegal? They both do the samething.

Answer 1

The Constitution say we have a right to bear arms, so let the gun nuts have their guns, just make the bullets cost $500 a bullet. That way when they want to shoot somebody they have to save up, and question if they need to.

Answer 2

I think you actually miss the whole point in this case.

1) Guns are not dangerous, the people are

2) Criminals would still have guns

3) A person can commit suicide in a number ways and guns is only one of them. If he hadn't used a gun, he could have hung himself so should rope be illegal, too? Or how about razor blades or knives? Don't forget the exhaust on cars ~ I saw property come in where people used their cars to commit suicide. Where do we draw the line to prevent suicide? We can't, anymore than we can prevent someone killing someone else.

4) People are killed by drunk drivers every day of the week so do we have to make cars illegal, too? And it isn't always by drunk drivers or those who abuse drugs, many times it's through reckless driving, especially among the young where the death rate has increased drastically from years ago.

And I am ALL for raising the age limit of drivers and have been for quite some time. That car is much more powerful than a gun but kids and many adults have no clue ~ they are in a hurry and don't care who they run down to get to their location 5 minutes earlier.

Back in the 1800s, guns were in almost every home, especially the home of farmers who had to put food on the table. So what was the difference between then and now?

1) God was in the home and kids were taught to love their fellow man and show respect for life

2) Kids were taught to mind their parents so if they were told not to mess with the gun, the majority of them didn't (there's always exceptions to every rule, even back then).

3) Kids were also taught at a young age how to handle a gun and understand the power one had when they had it with them.

4) Kids were disciplined and taught to take responsibility for their actions.

5) People took pride in who they were, in their name, and were much more honest than they are today

People like you have to realize it isn't the gun, it's the mind frame of people who have no respect or love for others that use a gun to hurt or kill others and no amount of legislation to make them illegal will keep the criminals from getting guns and using them against innocent people.

Remember Prohibition back in the 1920s? Did it work? Nope. People had stills everywhere and did all the illegal things they could to still have their moonshine ~ they totally ignored the law. Why do you think guns would be any different?

Answer 3

You know, that's like asking if free speech should be legal.

Apparently some Constitutional Rights are more popular than others. Go figure.

That fact that your mom's boyfriend committed suicide with a gun is a moot point. While I'm sorry to hear his life ended in such a tragic fashion, what makes you think that he'd be alive if the gun was absent?

If he killed himself with pills, would you suggest banning medicine?

If he killed himself driving a car, would we all be riding bicycles?

Evidence from any study proves that a society is safer when the criminals don't know who is armed. Disarmament of the general public means that you are at the mercy of either the worst criminals... or the police.

Swimming pools kill more children accidentally every year than guns. Let's not ban and outlaw those either.

Answer 4

You are overlooking the root of the problem. Guns are a tool for violent offenders not a reason. If somebody wants to kill somebody else they will. If you make guns illegal you will simply create an even larger black market for them. Gang members often stash a gun and whoever needs it uses it. Outlawing them would make no difference in accessibility for this. You may as well outlaw knifes, bats, household chemicals, box cutters (which to date were tools used in the largest mass murder ever the 9/11 attacks) and airplanes for that matter. If you want to stop violent crimes you have to figure out why a person is violent. To do that you first have to be able to determine that a person is planning to commit the crime anyways, and that is the part most of us are afraid of. Determining if someone is going to be a danger to themselves or others before they have done anything somehow without violating their rights. Simply said we will never get rid of violent crimes and if they aren't using guns they will still find a way.

Answer 5

Again, someone thinking they know what is best for all citizens. Let's ban all cigarettes and alcohol too. They kill more people than guns do every year.

Ask the Canadians, English, or Australians about that. I think they would tell you that the law abiding citizens don't have guns, of course, but the thugs, criminals and monsters are still getting them the way they do now, ILLEGALLY. Granted, some crime is done with legal weapons, but most of the crime would likely be committed with a knife, baseball bat, or bare hands otherwise.

I do not think that making guns illegal is the right path here. A bit of gun control, restrictions, and tighten the reigns to keep legal guns out of inappropriate hands, MOST DEFINITELY. But even then, you have to watch the lawmakers. It opens too many doors.

I personally own a few, for protection. The twist: not for protection from people, but from the wild animals here in Alaska. I do not wish to shoot one, I don't hunt. But, I have 3 little kids to protect, and this is my ONLY defense against a moose or bear. Chances are slim for an encounter, but so are car wrecks, and I still make them wear seat belts.

The view that guns cause death and violence is misconstrued. The person holding them does. Let's focus on keeping them out of that misguided person's hands instead of a blanket "Ban Them All".

Making them illegal won't get rid of them, it would just disallow those who would use them properly a means of protecting themselves from those who will have them regardless of the law.

Answer 6

If your mom's boyfriend used a bomb instead of a gun to commit suicide, wouldn't that have been less desirable?

They've pretty much padded all the bridge abutments. If you want to commit suicide with a car, you have to drive into someone head-on. What if they have kids in the back seat?

The job of a police officer is NOT to kill someone who appears to be a violent criminal. His job is to *apprehend* that criminal, and hold him for trial.

Last week, a woman in St. Paul was beaten and sexually attacked for 90 minutes, while more than 12 neighbors ignored her cries for help. They know that the neighbors knew of the attack, because security cameras show them peeking out their doors, etc. But if that woman had been armed, she could have protected herself.

I've lived places where the nearest police agency was 17 miles away. I called once about an animal I thought was rabid; they told me that the animal control officer wouldn't be in my end of the county in 5 more days. They suggested that I simply shoot the animal myself, in order to protect my wife and small son.

Guns are designed to propel projectiles at high speed. Some are appropriate for killing deer. Some are appropriate for killing rabbit. Some are appropriate for plinking tin cans. Very few of them are particularly good at killing people.

Americans buy about 5 million handguns yearly. About 15,500 murders are committed annually, and by no means are they all commited with guns. People get pushed from heights, drowned, poisoned, garroted, run over by motor vehicles, knifed, killed by arson, or by bombing, or by other means.

I appreciate your concern, Miss, but guns are not a problem; they're a solution. I'd rather murderers kill ONLY their victim, than kill dozens or hundreds of others, by using such non-specific methods as bombing or arson. Not only do we end up with fewer victims, but by knowing who the intended victim is, we have a better chance of catching the culprit.

Answer 7

Even if this was possible (such a law would be unconstitutional), how would you keep illegal guns out of the hands of violent offenders? Marijuana is illegal, but I bet that I could buy some if I really wanted to. Crack is illegal, but I bet I could find some. Entering our country without proper documentation is illegal, yet twelve million have done it.

Making guns illegal will not prevent those who really wish to obtain them from getting them. Gun control laws have had no significant effect on violent crime.

Answer 8

The problem with your reasoning is that governments have killed far more people with guns than individuals have. If you count the world wars, genocide and such, governments have killed perhaps 100 million in the last century.

But individuals? Maybe less than a million, hard to say.

Also, keep in mind that FBI statistics estimate that Americans use firearms 400,000 times per year to avert crime, with less than 5% of 6% of those incidents involving a single shot fired.

Guns in civilian hands do more to keep us safe than to harm us. And gun control is more about government subjecting people than is it about keeping folks safe.

Answer 9

While I agree that safety and health should be prioritized, removing guns is not the answer. That and it is unconstitutional, too. Many people are killed by other methods, too. Drunk driving is illegal and alcohol was once prohibited.

Most people are smart enough to realize the consequences of their actions.

Edit; Automatic weapons are legal through certain sanctions by the federal law.

Answer 10

NO, NO, NO< if u make them illegal only the criminals will have them because they know the common peopl cant get them them the crime rate will go through the roof because they know it would be easy targets. however if u arm the law abiding general public the crime rate will go down, that is when a criminal as less chance of succeding in the crime . we as the common people have the right to defend ourself, you take away the guns, you are taking away our rights. it is in the contitution. the day they make guns illegal........ well, it would not be a good thing to do that

Answer 11

^I wish they were illegal, the problem is they will still get into the wrong hands.

Just today I read a very sad story about a boy that was shot and killed in London England they have very strict gun laws, guns are illegal and this atrocity still happened, and yes I still wish gun would be banned.